The Philippine Economic Zone Authority (Peza) on Wednesday said P6.39B worth of investments were approved during its first board meeting in 2023, signaling a strong start for the investment promotion agency this year.
Peza officer in charge and Director General Tereso Panga said this is higher by 83.69 percent compared with the P3.48B approved in the same period in 2022.
“With the positive start of the year, we are bullish with our outlook this year, targeting a 10 percent investment growth based on the initial locator sector targets,” the Peza official said in a statement
Panga said further that these comprise 19 projects of ecozone locators, developers and operators.
Of these projects, 18 are new and expansions worth a total of P2.28 billion.
Eleven of these projects are by export manufacturing enterprises, four from facilities enterprises, two for IT (information technology) enterprises, and one by a domestic market enterprise.
The last one is an economic zone development project by Filipino firm MJ Landtrade Development Corp., an undertaking which is expected to bring in more than half of the January investment figure, raking in a total investment value of P4.116 billion.
The investment promotion agency said these projects will be located in Makati City, Pasay City, areas in the Calabarzon (Cavite, Batangas, Laguna, Rizal, Quezon) region, Cebu City and South Cotabato.
Amid its strong start this year, Peza has vowed to strengthen the implementation of the ecozone development program with the launch of the new Philippine Development Plan (PDP) for the years 2023 to 2028 last Monday.
“With the inclusion of the ecozone development program in the new Philippine Development Plan, we are positive that more ecozones will be approved and created especially in the countryside,” said Panga.
“Ecozones can be shields to soften the landing of [the economy amid] the headwinds, the external constraints, and all these global disruptions happening, especially during this time. The other side to this is that ecozones can be economic drivers to accelerate economic recovery and growth,” he added.
Under the PDP, Peza is tasked to expedite the implementation of the ecozone transformation road map.